Monday, November 28, 2016

Review: Labyrinth Lost

I bought Labyrinth Lost on Kindle and 20% into the book, I ordered a hardback copy. It’s that good.

Labyrinth Lost revolves around Alex, a bruja living in Brooklyn with her mother and two sisters who also have magical abilities. The problem is that Alex doesn’t want to be a bruja and on the day she’s supposed to receive her blessing from her ancestors, she tries to wish her powers away- and ends up exiling her family to Los Lagos. Realizing her mistake, she sets out to bring them back but runs into a dark and sinister force in this other realm.

When this book first came out, I saw it everywhere. Twitter, tumblr, blogs… I could not escape this beautiful cover. I decided to wait and give it a few weeks to let the hype settle down before I read it because I feel like a lot of times we get swept up in other people’s exuberance for a book and miss the experience for ourselves. What I realized was that the hype around this book isn’t actually hype- it’s just that good.

The plot is strong and the pacing flows. There were several parts where the author could have bogged us down with details and chose not to which kept the plot pushing forward. I’ve seen reviews where people are criticizing the handful of answered questions we were left with and that cliffhanger ending, but hello! Sequel!

I loved all of the characters and I think the author did a pretty good job on hashing out their personalities… except for one character and it was almost enough for me to drop a star from the rating. Alex has two love interests in this story- Nova and Rishi. Nova is fleshed out and given an entire backstory and has a very strong personality. Rishi, on the other hand, we don’t get much about her besides the fact that she likes Alex and she jumped into a portal. That’s it. I can give you all sorts of facts about Nova but really nothing about Rishi. Which was terribly disappointing to me. I felt like I was forced to want Alex to go for Nova because I know all these things about him. Rishi felt very bland and dry and I really didn’t care if anything happened between her and Alex. And this is coming from someone who generally always prefer f/f ships to m/f ships.

There is also PROPER BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION in this book. None of this “half gay” stuff or “gay for you” or “straight for you”. PROPER. BISEXUAL. REPRESENTATION. Let that sink in.I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes magical girls, magical boys, sarcasm, and ancestors being sassy.